The WSF belief is expressed in their slogan: "another world is possible". But to what extent does this include a women's perspective?

The seventh annual gathering of the World Social Forum brings the world to Africa as activists, social movements, networks, coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, north America, Europe and all corners of the African continent converge in Nairobi, Kenya for five days of cultural resistance and celebration (20-25 January 2007).

EI TU TA, Burma—At 35, Naw Win Schwe has already lost more than she cares to think about. During a government military offensive near Mon township in March, Naw Win’s husband Maung Thanlwin was arrested and killed by Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Since then she has also lost her home, land and almost everything she and her husband had once owned. Eventually she was forced to flee for her own life as well, which is how she ended up in the Ei Tu Ta refugee camp on the eastern edge of Burma’s Karen state. 

“They [the heavily armed Mexican federal police] began to hit us indiscriminately as they moved in. I was carrying my friend who’d fainted from the tear gas they shot at us. Seven police were hitting me with their billy clubs. They took my wallet and my cell phone, then threw me on top of a mountain of people. They took off everybody’s shoes and tied our hands behind our backs. For an hour and a half they spit on us, kicked us, tortured us, then they grabbed me and threw me in the back of a pickup. I was covered with blood. They questioned us, kicked us, jumped on us. We drove for two hours. I lost all feeling in my body. When they finally stopped they pulled me out of the pickup by my hair. ‘Drag yourselves like the dogs you are!’ they reviled us.”

The '100% Pure New Zealand' is a government-sponsored tourism promotion campaign targeting tourists from wealthy countries as 'cash cows.'

About 2.5 million foreign tourists including visitors from Europe, North America, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and S. Korea, who visit New Zealand each year, risk exposure to serious health hazards without any warning. New Zealand government, motivated by economic factors alone, has refused to warn visitors against the dangers of exposure to 

1. Excessive UV Radiation
2. Lethal Chemicals
3. Toxic Algae Poisoning

The turmoil in the Darfur region of west Sudan has received too little international attention. Yet the plight of the southerners has been neglected even more in recent months. In early July 2006, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was celebrating a ‘modest landmark’: the repatriation of 10,000 Sudanese refugees from neighbouring countries over a seven-month period.

Given that there are 340,000 more Sudanese refugees to be taken home, this may not sound like such a significant achievement. But to the UNHCR and anybody else who knows the headaches the exercise has encountered since its launch at the end of 2005, the progress is satisfactory.